Music, Rhythm & the Brain

Written By S. Christina Boyd
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Build your Brain.
Boost your Memory.
Balance your Body

We think a lot about exercising our bodies and fret over whether or not we are doing the right kind, in the right way, and enough. But we rarely think about our brains needing exercise. After all, we use them all day long. Isn’t that sufficient? No, actually, it’s not.

Our brains need a lot of exercise! We can do that in many ways: learning new things, doing puzzles, playing cards, crossword puzzles, teaching, socializing, and listening to or making music. It’s music I’d like to talk about because it is startling the impact that music has on our brains – from improving children’s critical thinking, math, and science skills; to increasing mental alertness, memory, and reducing stress in adults; to preventing many problems experienced during the aging process. Music literally changes our brains, no matter our age.

 
graphic of head silhouette with multi-colored waves and musical notes
“Music reaches parts of the brain that other things can’t. It’s a strong cognitive stimulus that grows the brain in a way that nothing else does, and the evidence that musical training enhances things like working memory and language is very robust.”
— Catherine Loveday, Neuropsychologist, University of Westminster
 

Rhythm is Intrinsic to Life

Our relationship with sound and rhythm starts early – in the womb between 17 and 19 weeks. The growing fetus exists in a sea of vibration and sound. It hears and feels the mother’s breath, blood flow, heartbeat, and voice. And from outside the womb there is music, song, and ambient sounds that it hears. From the very beginning rhythm is encoded into our bodies and brains.

Music is essentially vibration which we feel as much as we hear. Brian Greene, Physicist at Columbia University, tells us “everything has a natural set of frequencies at which it wants to vibrate based on its construction, how it’s put together, and what it’s made of.” Our bodies and everything in the world around us consists of vibration, rhythm, and sound. Even the brain has its own internal rhythms in the form of rhythmic electrical pulses. These rhythmic beats in the brain underlie everything -- memory, thinking, walking (all of our movements large and small), emotions, and brain health.

"The brain absolutely has rhythm," says Nathan Urban, former Associate Director at Pittsburgh Brain Institute at Pittsburgh University, and every cell has its own beat. But they don’t work alone. Groups of cells synchronize in order to accomplish things such as walking, thinking, and memory. How do they synchronize to work together? Urban says it’s similar to people clapping together: they listen to their neighbor and adjust their rhythm until they are clapping together. These rhythmic patterns are essential for movement. There is a walking rhythm, a running rhythm, etc. Locomotion has to have a rhythmic underpinning and science has shown that music can re-establish the brain’s rhythmic sequences when they get out of sync. When we sing, march in time with music, play an instrument, or dance, our cells get back in sync and begin firing together to re-establish the rhythm patterns needed for our daily functions.

Music for Children, Adults, and Seniors

“There are few things that stimulate the brain the way music does. If you want to keep your brain engaged throughout the aging process, listening to or playing music is a great tool. It provides a total brain workout.”
— Johns Hopkins otolaryngologist

Whether we are listening to music, playing an instrument, or simply drumming or tapping in time with it, we are doing great things for our brain – young or old. For children, the benefits of musical training are remarkable. Children who study music are usually better at math, science and engineering later in life. The younger they start, the better it is. Their brains develop differently from those who do not study music as a child. Most notably, musicians have a larger corpus callosum, the large bundle of nerve fibers that connect the two sides of the brain. Also, areas involving movement, hearing, and visuospatial abilities (perception of spatial relationships among objects) appear to be larger in professional keyboard players. And musicians in general can more easily process multiple things at once because playing music requires them to use multiple senses at the same time.

At any age, however, if we incorporate music into our life our brains are strengthened, they remain resilient, and they function well. Making music by playing an instrument, singing, or drumming increases blood flow to the brain, stimulates production of new brain cells, and in certain areas the gray matter increases, thus changing the brain’s anatomy. As with anything else, if we don’t exercise our brains there will be decline, decay, and a slowing down as age sets in. But brains are amazingly adaptable and flexible well into old age, always creating new pathways and new neural networks to boost our thinking, our mood, our ability to move, and our creativity – if they are stimulated! When brain networks are used, challenged, and tested frequently they will remain strong, connected, and function well. 


What Happens in the Brain with Music?

Listening to music requires almost every part of the brain to work simultaneously and do multiple things at lightening speed in a coordinated manner. Finnish researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, researched how the brain is affected by music and found that most areas of the brain are activated all at the same time, including areas that control movement, emotions, and creativity. And there is a strong link between the auditory regions of the brain and the motor areas that process the pulse of music – supporting the premise that music and movement are interconnected. For example, the cerebellum, at the base of the brain, controls movement and timing and is immediately engaged when we hear music, in order to get into sync with the beat. The Finnish researchers found that the limbic areas of the brain, associated with emotions, were involved in processing rhythm as well as tonality (the character of a piece of music). Interestingly, they found that the processing of timbre (the quality of a sound) was associated with the area of the brain related to “mind-wandering and creativity.” Professor Petri Toiviainen of the study summed it up by saying, “Our results show for the first time how different musical features activate emotional, motor, and creative areas of the brain.”

In short, there is no single music center in the brain. Rather, musical activity involves almost all regions of the brain. There are areas that process different aspects of music (timbre, pitch, tone, etc.) and other areas that coordinate to instantly bring all of this information together, flooding our senses with music.

Music for Brain Health

Music is a full-blown brain workout every time, especially when we are actively involved through singing, dancing, or making music. Active participation in music requires all of the brain regions and neural networks to work together, simultaneously and rapidly. Music changes the biology of the brain, creating new networks and strengthening others. Lawrence Parsons, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, formerly in the Department of Psychology at University of Sheffield says “There is no activity that we do that allows the brain to do so many things at once with such complicated coordination and with such depth. We are wired for sound.”

No matter our age, the brain has amazing plasticity, with an ability to restructure, reorganize, re-create, and heal itself. That the brain can change itself at any age is a fairly new recognition in neuroscience. The brain’s ability to heal and restructure itself is far greater than we ever thought. And now that we know the power of music in healing the brain, it is rapidly becoming a method of choice for brain health. So listen to music, sing, dance, drum, or take a few music lessons. It is never too late to build your brain!

  • Increase your resilience to age-related decline in brain functions

  • Develop faster reflexes through exercising all of your senses simultaneously

  • Strengthen your learning skills through the brain’s inherent ability to manage complex information

  • Improve your attention span, concentration, and problem-solving abilities

  • Experience a greater enjoyment of life

 
 

Start Now

  • Take a few lessons with an instrument or pick up a drum and follow along with the rhythm of your favorite music.

  • Sing by yourself or with a music track, or find a group to join

  • Move to music – dance with a partner or simply boogie around your living room to music you love.

  • Listen to your favorite music as well as new music – unfamiliar music challenges the brain to understand the new sound


  • Consider one of my Stand Tall – Don’t Fall classes – we begin with a rhythm section and end with a fun session of simple, rhythmic movements to music.

 
 

Music is at the very core of our being, waiting to be awakened and expressed. As Bobby McFerrin the renowned American musician proclaims on his t-shirt:

“Live more musically.”

 

The views expressed in this article belong solely to S. Christina Boyd based on 30 years of clinical experience as a movement therapist. If you would like further reading, please explore the source and related information provided.

 
S. Christina Boyd
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