This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

Significant study in cognitive science has focused on the topic of expertise, particularly in determining whether high levels of attainment are attributable to innate characteristics or to environmental factors. A complete answer to this complex question would likely fall between the two extremes, though confirming this with certainty is difficult. Both genetic and external factors affect all milestones of development, and distinguishing between cause and effect in studying the brain presents challenges. Learning to play music affects the brain, but whether only a portion of the population has the innate capacity to manifest those effects remains uncertain. “Talent” is a label that people often apply circuitously or retroactively to those who have already attained great things.

Geneticists use databases like the Minnesota twin registry to study the links between certain genes and traits. Although twins reared apart often share remarkable similarities, the extent to which this is simply a statistical illusion (given the likelihood that any two people would have some traits in common if compared closely and broadly enough) is unclear. An alternative explanation is that genes might indirectly influence a person if associated primary traits (height, timbre of voice, etc.) affect how others treat that person. As a child, Levitin was discouraged from learning to play the guitar because his hands were small. He nonetheless learned to play as a teen and had great success, proving that while physical limitations might have some impact on one’s capabilities with a particular instrument, there are no fixed rules. Some people have a biological predisposition toward certain instruments or skills, but other traits, such as determination, and environmental factors, such as opportunities, are even more influential. Genes may provide some insight into the probability of certain traits manifesting, but predictions about human behavior are always a matter of statistical likelihood rather than absolutes and are thus meaningful only for populations, not for individuals.

In the development of musical skill, the amount of practice repeatedly emerges as the primary determiner of attainment. Research consistently shows that attaining world-class expertise in any subject—including music—requires approximately 10,000 hours of study and practice because learning requires assimilating and consolidating information, and more experience correlates to stronger paths for learning and memory. Likewise, emotional tagging strengthens memory, so emotional investment in procuring and developing a skill correlates with success. Memorization is a necessary component of musical skill that often involves organizing information into hierarchical structures and “chunking” long passages into discrete sections. Although some musicians have a prodigious natural skill for recalling and reproducing tunes, most use various musical schema to streamline the memorization process.

Science provides no definitive explanation for why some performers are more adept at emotionally moving audiences. Even in top music schools, expressiveness and emotionality are rarely taught. Levitin hypothesizes that musicians who recall the feelings that inspired their songs while performing might reactivate the neurological pathways corresponding to the emotions themselves, prompting sympathetic emotional responses in listeners. This emotional capacity can be even more important in a performance than technical skill, particularly in developing celebrity rather than expertise. Some famous musicians turn their lack of technical musical expertise into an advantage by eschewing convention to produce innovative sounds. Joni Mitchell, for example, tuned her guitar unconventionally so that her work didn’t rely on typical chords and rendered fretted and unfretted notes differently. Although she had some trouble finding compatible backing musicians, the unique sound became a prized hallmark of her work.