The Relation Of Music To Cognitive Neuroscience

Music, apart from being a subject you ‘do’ or ‘create, ’ is just as much a subject of probing intellectual enquiry. My musical career truly began when I was thrusted into my local youth orchestra, Harrow Young Musicians. Being part of this orchestra for 10 years not only allowed my musical ability to flourish under a wide expanse of repertoire, but also provided me a contextual education in the meaning of each orchestration. It was here I realised the social and contextual importance of music with regards to the composers life and the society around them throughout human history, and the way in which this detail is hidden within a score, playing it first-hand. This also provided me many opportunities, such as singing a solo in St Marks Basilica, and playing such multifarious pieces as Shostakovich 10 or Mahler 5 as a first violinist, or being principle harpist in excerpts of Wagner’s opera, Die Walküre. I also took this opportunity to learn more about the production of music, performing such duties as pastoral care within the orchestra and volunteering as an assistant librarian when needed.

With regards to performing, I am a first study pianist, having performed a major recital in my A-Level on piano, winning the (NAME CUP) Watford festival in the Romantic Open, coming second in the North London Regional Music Festival and am currently working towards my dipABRSM in which my programme ranges from Mozart to Rachmaninov to Gershwin. With that being said, my interest in music predominantly lies with the intellectual and academic rigour and disciplines it demands. Music essentially can be used as a mirror against the society and culture in which it was composed, effectively the principle of ethnomusicology. However, I differ to most in saying that music is in fact not a universal language, but instead, one of the least conceptual and least representational forms of the ‘liberal arts, ’ that were coined by Capella (or arts plainly).

As a believer in the constructivist view of art, in which the performance of the piece is equally as important as its conception, we cannot say that any one piece is able to be rationalised in one way, when each performance is so different. In fact music’s ability to be appreciated in an immediate and individual way with regards to the listeners mood, or even social context, means that coining music a ‘language, ’ something definitive, would be counterintuitive. Looking into depth at Debussy’s ‘Nuages’ demonstrates the myriad of individual ways in which we can verbalise and perceive music. ‘Nuages’ structure can be described as five cycles of differing lengths defined by their two motifs and variants, but equally can be described as a loose ternary form with the rotational form within the ABA’ impression. Conversely, you could argue that ‘Nuages’ lacks the ternary form’s symmetry or lacks the rotational form’s consistent alternation of motivic material, instead that the piece is “through composed, ” using a continually additive approach. It is this differing of minds that really excites me to be able to debate and offer opposing views about the musicology of the Western Classical Style and 20th Century music at a higher level.

Speaking academically, I find the clear disobedience/dichotomy of Debussy and Ravel against the strict melodic structure and tonal form of romanticism, and instead the contrasting tonal world they formed, fascinating. Reading Lederer’s biography on Debussy; ‘The Quiet Revolutionary’ and looking into depth at ‘La Cathedral Englotie’ allowed me to appreciate the colourful tonal world that he crafted, in spite of the ‘perfect’ concept of harmony and melodic structure that the Romantic era imposed at the time. This made me link with relation to the symbolist aesthetic, that there is equal emphasis on either the individual effect of a chord or the overall effect of a section, at the expense of the familiar Romantic tension and resolution harmonic pattern. It is this idea that no genre is the ‘correct’ or most ‘genius’ form of music and that what makes some of the most revolutionary composers brilliant, so to speak, is their ability to defy what has come before them, regardless of the social and contextual repercussions- Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony and what it signifies against Stalin’s communist state also springs to mind. Taking science subjects at A-Level meant that I appreciated the link between the ability of both areas to manipulate certain notations and symbols to create some sense of order and universal understanding in their discrete fields. It was this interest in the psychology of everyday musical experiences that drove me to volunteer for six-months at a nursing home with patients suffering particularly with dementia.

My satisfaction in seeing the response I elicited from the residents by playing pieces of their choice on the piano, violin or harp, was immeasurable seeing that music had a strong influence on their mood, prompting me to research further the effects of music on cognitive neuroscience, leading me to write my article, 'Our Brain: The Stave to our Thoughts, ' in the school magazine. Apart from analysis, I look forward to delving deeper into the effect of music on psychology and relish the idea of being able to potentially enter into further discussions with Eric Clarke in the near future. The ability for music to interweave itself into every part of life further encourages me to study this academic discipline at a higher level.