Rhythms of the Mind

Music often is described as a universal language, a human expression that has existed in every culture throughout history.

It is such an enduring, essential part of the human experience that musicians and scientists alike suspect music may provide insights into the way the human brain operates.

Listening to music involves a range of coordinated brain functions—including emotions, memory, reasoning, linguistics, and physiological responses—but until recently, the exact areas of the brain that are engaged in listening to music remained a mystery. New neuroimaging technologies, however, says Anthony Brandt, an assistant professor of composition and theory at the Shepherd School of Music, can allow scientists to identify which parts of the brain are affected as a person listens to a great piece of music—what Brandt calls “whole-brain music.”

“Because so many cognitive functions occur when we listen to whole-brain music, it is one activity that most deeply knits together our mind,” Brandt says. “If, in fact, this was empirically confirmed, it would explain why music speaks so powerfully to everyone, whether they are musicians with a great deal of training or nonmusicians.”

Part of music’s enduring quality, suggests Brandt, is the way in which the tempo, transformation, and repetition of a melody mirror the human life cycle and other aspects of human life. “The stages of development humans undergo in their lifetimes as well as their hopes and aspirations have changed very little over the past 1,000 years, although the world today as compared to just 50 years ago has changed very rapidly,” Brandt says. “Music, in the way it is composed, expresses the tension we feel between the enduring part of human experience, which changes very gradually, and the outer world, which is changing so quickly.”

Ultimately, Brandt says, understanding how we process music also will help illuminate how the brain processes the rhythms and transformations of life.