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It will introduce students to key debates and issues, conceptual terms and methodological approaches and highlight the various intellectual legacies that feed into the study of popular music (such as the 'discovery', valorisation and study of the 'folk' and folk song; and the 'critical theory' of Adorno and the.
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Popular music, in particular, is considered to be an effective form of subversion and resistance under oppressive circumstances. But, as Nomi Dave shows us in The Revolution's Echoes , the opposite is also true: music can often support, rather than challenge, the powers that be.

Dave shows that this isn't just the result of state manipulation; even in the absence of coercion, musicians and their audiences take real pleasure in musical praise of leaders. Time and again, whether in traditional music or in newer genres such as rap, Guinean musicians have celebrated state power and authority. With The Revolution's Echoes , Dave insists that we must grapple with the uncomfortable truth that some forms of music choose to support authoritarianism, generating new pleasures and new politics in the process. Inhalt Introduction. Bibliografische Informationen.

In fact, the biggest goal for most training studies, notwithstanding musical training, is to disentangle the effects of longitudinal training and pre-existing differences or factors other than the intervention, such as gender, genetic predisposition, general IQ, socio-economic background and parents' influence. Another difficulty of interventions in young populations concerns the fact that children's brains are very inhomogeneous, and therefore comparisons, even within similar age groups, may not be very informative.

The musician's brain is recognized as a good model for studying neural plasticity Munte et al. The fact that in several studies, a correlation was found between the extent of the anatomical differences and the age at which musical training started strongly argues against the possibility that these differences are preexisting and the cause, rather than the result of practicing music. On the other hand, the contamination of most longitudinal studies with children is that they are correlational, and most do not assign the subjects randomly to either musical education or a control group.

As a result, the observed positive effects on cognitive functioning may not solely derive from practicing music but also from differences in motivation for learning or general intelligence, musical predispositions aside. Because general cognitive abilities Deary et al. The nature vs. Musical pitch perception Drayna et al. Importantly, these predispositions are typically tested for in children in a music school entrance exam.

At least some components of cognitive abilities that are found to be better in the musically-trained stem from innate qualities Irvine, , but it is difficult to expect ecologically-valid intervention studies to be able to untangle this factor from the effect of training Barrett et al. Corrigall et al.

They describe how a number of individual traits, such as conscientiousness, persistence, selective attention and self-discipline that are needed in music training, could be the pre-existing qualities that facilitate learning, brain plasticity, as well as far-transfer effects. This particular personality trait is genetically determined to some extent and may be also responsible for motivation to learn.

Dopamine receptors also play a major role in shaping motivation: genetic variants of the proportion of the dopamine receptors type 1 to type 2 in the striatum Frank and Fossella, , determine the tendency to learn from positive feedback as opposed to negative feedback and may thus affect intrinsic motivation—a major factor in training any complex skill in the long term. Rewarding value of a musical activity could be one of the driving forces for brain plasticity induced by musical training.

Due to dopamine's important role in long-term memory formation e. A positive affective experience, such as pleasure and pride derived from first music lessons will likely promote future practice and total duration of training. In practice, it is difficult to control for levels of intrinsic motivation in empirical studies of musical training, such as those conducted by Moreno and colleagues Besson et al. Other factors that affect music performance ability are emotional support from parents and a nurturing relationship with the teacher characterized by mutual liking Sloboda, Although these are not the focus of this article, they greatly affect a child's motivation to practice and the learning outcome, and should be taken into consideration in future studies investigating effects of musical training compared to other forms of long-term training intervention.

Variance within musicians may also be a variable contributing to the musical training effect. The level of musical training is linked to pleasurable experience when listening to music Gold et al.

Introduction

However, little is known about individual variability in music-induced positive emotional responses. It is possible, for instance, that individuals who experience deeply rewarding musical emotions are drawn to taking on musical training again, with potential genetic influences such as in individuals with William's syndrome, Levitin, Later on, pleasure from the performance of music may add to the intrinsic motivation to continue training, thus forming a self-reinforcing cycle in which a student with innate predispositions to rewarding musical emotions experiences satisfaction with his own performance which encourages the student to practice.

In addition, as with any skill learning that takes years to master, a high tolerance to frustration and perseverance are personality traits that would render a student more likely to continue the training Barrett et al.


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  7. Interestingly, musicians may differ in the level of enjoyment they derive from their artistic activity, with a particular difference between popular, jazz- and folk- vs. Although studies mostly concentrate on musicians trained in playing a particular instrument, the type of education they received may affect the outcome not only due to instructional differences but also through differences in motivation.

    One of the study's conclusions was that popular music artists tend to have higher levels of intrinsic motivation and reportedly learning to play an instrument out of own desire and later age at training commencement than classical musicians. The latter, who may have been confronted with higher demands for discipline and compliance in the formal educational system, tended to value technical skills higher than pleasure, and presumably had higher levels of extrinsic motivation for awards in adult career, and for teacher's praise during training.

    Although brain plasticity studies have so far mainly concentrated on classical music education, it may be important to note that students with classical and non-classical music education may actually differ in personality traits such as conscientiousness, Corrigall et al.

    The aforementioned consideration of motivation as a learning-modulating variable leads us to the question of what happens to the learning outcomes and skill transfer in children who are forced to learn to play an instrument. In this case, music training may be an unpleasant and stressful experience. However, evidence form more ecological designs shows that stress impairs word learning and recall performance in comparison to no stress Schwabe and Wolf, This has to do with the role of the amygdala in memory formation under stress: it not only enhances the consolidation of the stress-related stimuli but also facilitates a switch toward more habitual responding mediated by the dorsal striatum and away from goal-directed behavior that is mediated by the medial temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex Schwabe et al.

    The equivalent of such a switch in a typical learning situation would be moving away from deep, reflective processing under supportive, non-demanding circumstances to superficial processing under test-anxiety, which profoundly affects factual memory Fransson, Stress derived from fear of punishment therefore affects the way we learn and often leads to worse performance than reward motivation.

    The effect depends on the task at hand but a negative impact has been found in the formation of spatial Murty et al. Although we cannot exhaustively elaborate on the literature treating motivation, learning and transfer in education research, suffice it to say that some forms of punishment motivation resulting in stress have a negative impact on learning Lepine et al. In the context of musical education, we suggest thus that the aforementioned influence of personality and intrinsic motivation should be taken into account in future studies.

    For example, in random assignment studies on the impact of musical training, participants should also be asked to declare their personal motivation to adhere to the training at least before and after the intervention. Furthermore, personality questionnaires could be incorporated to test for traits that affect the learning style e. These factors could then be used as covariates in the analysis of the effect of musical training in both behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Such information would help determine the extent of the influence of personality and motivational disposition on the long-term adherence to the program as well as its outcome in terms of transfer skills.

    This could be particularly pertinent given the fact, that these factors could not only limit the positive effects of musical activities but even be detrimental to cognitive and emotional development if the activity represents mainly a source of stress and negative affect. In addition, this information might also help to disentangle the real impact of the training from the influence of personality and motivation.

    Here we want to point at one specific aspect, which could represent an underlying mechanism of the beneficial transferrable effects of musical training. This specific feature is related to the fact that musical activities are usually based on rhythm.

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    Most musical styles have an underlying temporal pattern that is called meter, which defines a hierarchical structure between time points London, Ontogenetically, rhythm discrimination is observed in infants as young as 2 months of age Trehub and Hannon, Like adults, 7-months old infants can infer an underlying beat, categorizing rhythms on the basis of meter Hannon and Johnson, , and 9-month old infants can more readily notice small timing discrepancies in strongly metrical than in non-metrical rhythms Bergeson and Trehub, The theory of dynamic attending suggests that rhythmical patterns in music can only be perceived because of a synchronization of attentional processes which entrain to the periodicities contained in the auditory rhythm Jones and Boltz, In fact, neuronal populations in the visual cortex entrain to the regular rhythm of stimulus presentation which constitutes a mechanism of attentional selection Lakatos et al.

    It has therefore been suggested that musical activities that imply perception and production of rhythms train attentional processes which benefits also other cognitive functions. Indeed, a recent study with children showed that musical activities increase the accuracy of produced rhythms Slater et al.

    Entrainment is in fact a physical principle which describes the adaptation of at least two oscillating agents toward a common phase and period, which could eventually lead to perfect synchronicity between the oscillators Rosenblum and Pikovsky, In this sense also the adjustment of behavior own musical output, in ensemble playing, or movements, as in dance to the perceived regular rhythm or extracted pulse can be regarded as entrainment Fitch, Neural populations can also be entrained by sensory stimulation Gander et al.

    Research on subcortical brain plasticity has used the frequency following response FFR as an indicator of perceptual acuity Moreno and Bidelman, The FFR is a component of the auditory brainstem response Tzounopoulos and Kraus, that is phase- and frequency-locked to the acoustic parameters of an auditory stimulus. In this sense the FFR represents evidence of direct neural entrainment to the sound, be it music or speech.

    Several studies have used this method to test training-derived plasticity in the perceptual processing of musical and vocal parameters or speech, demonstrating faster response in musical experts Tzounopoulos and Kraus, ; Chandrasekaran and Kraus, Furthermore, there is a close link between language and reading skills and the ability to perceive and produce rhythm, as widely documented by studies in children with dyslexia Huss et al. In fact, priming with a rhythmic sequence facilitates speech processing Cason and Schon, , and performance on perceptual discrimination in all sensory domains as well as motor response tasks is better when stimuli are presented isochronously Nobre et al.

    It appears thus that in musical education, daily training of the temporal processing mechanisms has a beneficial effect on other cognitive functions, such as reading, in which attention has to be guided in a specific manner. Moreover, a study by Tierney and Kraus showed that the ability to tap to a beat was associated with better performance not only in reading but also in other attention-demanding tasks which are purportedly at the basis of executive functions.

    Tapping to, producing or merely perceiving a rhythm in any sensory domain leads to formation of expectations that facilitates orienting of attentional resources Bolger et al. There is also evidence that timing or temporal processing is a skill partially explaining individual variability in cognitive-speed and non-verbal ability measures—findings based on the isochronous serial interval production task Sheppard and Vernon, ; Holm et al. And it may even support superior auditory verbal memory in musicians Jakobson et al.

    Being able to tap to an acoustic beat may be important for executive function Tierney and Kraus, and implies coordination of movements, anticipation and sensorimotor integration. Being able to synchronize to an external rhythm while playing an instrument requires not only fine motor skills but also good auditory-motor coordination and sensorimotor integration—capacities that are also vital in planning and executing movements in general.

    Indeed, the functional neuroimaging signature of sensorimotor integration is increased in musicians performing a temporal synchronization task and involves increases in brain network interaction including premotor cortex, posterior parietal cortex and thalamus Krause et al. Furthermore, this ability of locking into temporal patterns is a skill that is useful in social communication, in which reciprocity and turn taking is essential.

    The mentioned aspects of attentional guiding, forming temporal expectations, auditory-motor integration, coordination of movements and social interaction have all in common that they are based on a synchronization and adaptation of internal processes to the external rhythm of the music, or the actions of other musicians Trost and Vuilleumier, We therefore suggest that rhythmic entrainment and ensuing honing of temporal processing play a key role in the beneficial influence of music education on the development of executive functions and far transfer effects.

    Rhythmic entrainment has also been suggested as an emotion induction mechanism Juslin et al. According to Juslin and colleagues the process where internal bodily rhythms such as respiration adapt to the external rhythm of the music contributes to the induction of an emotional reaction.

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    Being in synchrony with the music or with the other musicians would therefore represent an emotional and often rewarding experience. As pointed out in the previous section on the influence of motivation, positive emotional experiences that activate the reward system modulate memory formation and favor brain plasticity. Furthermore, musical activities are often social. Indeed, it has been proposed that the evolutionary function of music has always been to increase cooperation, coordination, communication, co-pathy, contact, social cognition and cohesion between the members of a group Koelsch, It seems that one of these effects is the fact that a certain form of social synchronization is instilled, implying the respect of and adaptation to each other.


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    7. In fact, in empirical studies it has often been described that acting in synchrony with a partner may increase prosocial commitment Kokal et al. When playing music in a group one has to automatically synchronize to the other musicians. The state of synchrony is therefore generated naturally and is possible already in pre-school children who synchronize their drumming more easily in a social context Kirschner and Tomasello, Learning to perform an activity in synchrony together with others is supported by the activation of the mirror neuron system Tognoli et al.

      We therefore suggest that this social aspect of musical training may add to the role of reward and motivation in shaping a developing brain.

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      Moreover, learning of some skills singing in a choir, playing in an ensemble sets musical training apart from other social activities that do not require synchronization of actions with other group members specifically thanks to the engagement of the mirror neuron system. Another piece of evidence for brain plasticity induced directly via rhythmic entrainment comes from the rehabilitation literature. Rhythmic auditory stimulation RAS is an important method in brain stimulation, which may induce short but also long term plasticity in a damaged brain Thaut and Abiru, For example, in Parkinson patients stimulating the dopaminergic circuits in the basal ganglia leads to a reduction of movement disorder symptoms Thaut et al.

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      In other neurologic diseases or acquired brain injury RAS also has beneficial effects, as the synchronization to an external beat helps to recover the coordination of movements via the stimulation of auditory-motor and sensorimotor integration Bradt et al. Neuronal populations in various areas of the brain can be entrained by external stimulation Gomez-Ramirez et al. Specifically, maintenance of rhythmic regularity of neural oscillations within particular frequency bands has been suggested as a mechanism of communication across distant neural areas Canolty and Knight, ; Grahn, , as well as of sensory perception Thut and Miniussi, , and memory consolidation, particularly during sleep Fell and Axmacher, Rhythmic entrainment can be conditioned using e.

      Even in the animal literature interesting effect of rhythmic entrainment can be found Rickard et al. For example, based on a series of experiments on neonate chicks, Rickard and colleagues observed that complex rhythmic auditory stimuli enhance memory by promoting moderate levels of physiological arousal through noradrenergic modulation of the memory systems Toukhsati and Rickard, ; Rickard et al. The authors concluded that it is important that the auditory stimulus contains a certain rhythmical complexity as simple metronomic beats of non-metrical rhythms do not have any memory enhancing effect Toukhsati and Rickard, Furthermore, non-metrical that is, consisting of tones that are not aligned with the dominant beat music produced learning and memory deficits on a maze task in mice, while rats exposed to non-rhythmic music performed poorly in a spatial learning task Schreckenberg and Bird, ; Rauscher et al.

      This suggests that auditory stimulations with a non-metrical rhythmical structure could compromise memory processes. Furthermore, these studies show that even in a passive listening condition performance could be improved in animals. However, we would like to emphasize that an active involvement in a rhythmic activity could amplify the effects even more, as it is known that active participation in a musical activity compared to passive listening only has a stronger effect on, e.

      We propose that active engagement involving a synchronized production of motor responses is necessary for the facilitatory effect on attentional resources, movement control, auditory working memory and other functions that rely on temporal processing, as well as social synchrony.

      These particular aspects of musical training, absent in visual arts or theater training, contribute to the wide development of cognitive abilities and render it very different from other forms of artistic expression. We therefore suggest that a proper control group comparing music as a form of childhood intervention would be to use a group activity characterized by both rhythmic entrainment and social synchrony, such as for example team sport lessons e.

      In this review of the literature we show that musical training in childhood not only enhances many cognitive functions but is accompanied by neuroplastic changes in brain structure and function. Although this influence appears to be strongly potentiated when musical training takes place during sensitive periods, we have given some examples that music-induced brain plasticity does occur also later in life.