Music lessons help language abilities in eight-year-olds

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Title of paper under discussion Musical Training Influences Linguistic Abilities in 8-Year-Old Children: More Evidence for Brain Plasticity Authors Sylvain Moreno,  Carlos Marques,  Andreia Santos,  Manuela Santos,  São Luís Castro, Mireille Besson Journal Cerebral Cortex, Volume 19, Issue 3, March 2009, Pages 712–723 Link to original paper (open access) Overview The idea that passively listening to music can improve your …

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Musical pitches genuinely evoke colour sensations in some people

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Title of paper under discussion Automaticity of pitch class-color synesthesia as revealed by a Stroop-like effect Authors Kosuke Itoh, Honami Sakata, Hironaka Igarashi, Tsutomu Nakada Journal Consciousness and Cognition, Volume 71, May 2019, Pages 86-91 Link to original paper (open access) Overview Synaesthesia is a merging of senses that aren’t normally connected, whereby the stimulation …

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One half of a musician’s brain inhibits the other to finesse evenness in timing

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Title of paper under discussion Relationship between Interhemispheric Inhibition and Dexterous Hand Performance in Musicians and Non-musicians Authors Yi-Ling Kuo, Jason J. Kutch & Beth E. Fisher  Journal Nature, Scientific Reports, volume 9, Article number: 11574 (2019)  Link to original paper (open access) Overview The ability of the brain’s two hemispheres to ‘talk to one another’ is down to hundreds of millions interhemispheric …

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Adrenalin opens up the brave and closes down the shy

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Title of paper under discussion Interaction between physiological and subjective states predicts the effect of a judging panel on the postures of cellists in performance Authors Satoshi Endo, Kristina Juhlberg, Adrian Bradbury and Alan M. Wing Journal Frontiers in psychology vol. 5 773. (2014) Link to original paper (open access) Overview 24 cellists each played a …

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What makes an earworm sticky?

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Title of paper under discussion Dissecting an Earworm: Melodic Features and Song Popularity Predict Involuntary Musical Imagery Authors Kelly Jakubowski, Lauren Stewart, Sebastian Finkel, Daniel Müllensiefen Journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2017, Vol. 11, No. 2, 122–135 Link to original paper (open access) Overview Earworms – melodies that enter your head involuntarily …

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Schumann’s dystonia

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Title of paper under discussion Robert Schumann’s Focal Dystonia Author Eckart Altenmüller Journal Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists (eds: Bogousslavsky J, Boller F) Front Neurol Neurosci. Basel, Karger, 2005, vol 19, pp 179–188 Link to original paper (open access) Overview A compelling retrospective diagnosis of the finger problems that saw composer Robert Schumann (1810 – …

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The brain of cellist Bernhard Cossmann

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Title of paper under discussion Beitrag zur Lokalisation des musikalischen Talentes im Gehirn und am Schädel (Article on the localisation of musical talent in the brain and on the skull) Author Siegmund Auerbach Date of publication 1906 Journal Archives of Anatomy and Physiology, 1906:197–230 Link to original paper (open access) Overview This paper describes how the surface shape of …

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The pecking order of a string quartet

2 Comments / Musician, Timing / By

Title of paper under discussion Optimal feedback correction in string quartet synchronization Authors Alan M. Wing, Satoshi Endo, Adrian Bradbury and Dirk Vorberg Date of publication 06 April 2014 Journal Journal of the Royal Society Interface Link to original paper (open access) Overview This paper investigates the hierarchy of a string quartet. Members of a quartet were monitored during performances to …

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