How can people’s brains affect their understanding and experience of music? Explore the effects of amusia and how it impacts the lives of those suffering.

Music is everywhere. In every day life, music is now omnipresent. In the shopping centers, in your car, at a wedding, in a school presentation, on the bus, on the television, in commercials, on your MP3. Music is often at times inescapable. It can impact our lives on such a large scale and for many becomes part of their identity. There are some people, however, who suffer from brain disorders that distort the way in which they can interpret and comprehend musical sounds. Amusia is a brain disorder that affects the way in which sufferers can hear music and it is estimated that around 4% of the general population may experience tone-deafness (Peretz, 2006, pp. 1--32). It can be from birth, but usually arises due to a brain injury or brain operation. Amusia has been described as the inability to hear or differentiate between tone, pitch or other musical attachments (eg rhythm or time). The word amusia is made up of a prefix ‘a’, which means ‘not’ or ‘without’. In this sense, it signifies an individual that is without music, or without the ability to interpret or understand music on a basic mechanical level. To clarify, these people are able to hear and interpret other sounds and voices normally. They only have an issue in regards to any musical tone.

On some levels, everyone can relate to having some mild form of amusia. Cultural amusia is a similar concept although not as severe. This is when an individual does not have the capability or finds it incredibly difficult to interpret or enjoy music from other cultures. Hannon and Trehub (2005) demonstrate that infants over the age of 12 months illustrate an adult response to rhythm, where as babies as young as 6 months are more sensitive to various rhythms. What this means is that by the age of only 12 months an infant’s ability to detect and relate to any given rhythm has narrowed down dramatically. They can now more easily detect the types of rhythms to which they have been previously exposed, but find it harder to identify with those rhythms unfamiliar or unheard of before. They have been exposed to, and therefore learnt to appreciate, a certain set of consistent and recurring rhythms for their culture and hence are now ‘amusic’ in a sense to those rhythms of other cultures. For example an individual who is brought up in a western culture would usually have no difficulty with the time signatures and rhythms that are typical of westernized music although may struggle to identify with and understand the rhythms characteristic of jazz music or African music (Sacks, 2007). It shows how culture and exposure determines ones rhythmic abilities and in turn can also impact on their enjoyment of certain sounds, rhythms or beats. These cultural specific musical biases are related to our brain development and how we perceive the sound in which we hear. It is known as experience-dependent tuning and involves becoming more sensitive to the sounds one experiences regularly, occurring from a very young age, which results in slight amusicallity in everyone. Cultural specific tendencies are not strictly for music and are present in other aspects of an infants developing brain, for example face recognition. Studies have shown that an adult finds it more difficult to differentiate between faces of another race in comparison to that of their own, demonstrating that our brain impacts on the way in which we perceive things, including music. This is all related to our brain development and how experience-dependent tuning influences our experience of new and foreign things.

Congenital amusia refers to someone who is born with amusia (i.e. tone-deafness). Studies have proven that this aversion to music is a developmental one, not one of culture (for example, lack of exposure to music). Even children who have been raised in a musical household can suffer from amusia, as it is related to the brain and how it matures. A study (Foxton and Dean et al., 2004, pp. 801--810) concluded that all ten of their experimental participants had a pitch-perception deficit. There perception issues were diagnosed as amusia after administering a number of tests that involved the individual identifying whether there was a pitch change in a series of sounds. Their inability to detect changes of pitch correctly demonstrates the brains capacity to impact on how we understand and appreciate music and gives specific reference to how a brain disorder, such as amusia, can influence this experience. Another study (Ayotte and Peretz et al., 2002, pp. 238--251) supports these notions and reports that none of their participants who suffered from amusia had any other cognitive disability. They were all of high education, all had no hearing loss and were of normal audiometry, all had music lessons as children and grew up in environments with typical musical behavior within the family. It was noted “the musical disorder appears as an accidental disturbance in an otherwise normal cognitive and affective system” (Ayotte and Peretz et al., 2002, pp. 238—251) again reinforcing the notion that the brains defects were solely responsible for this unusual hearing and perception disorder.

“In an instant music can deepen the effect of a scene or bring an aspect of the story into sharper focus”. This is an excerpt from a book (Burt, 1994) that encompasses the way in which music has an influential impact on many areas in our lives today. Those with amusia are unable to relate to this emotional response that is often associated with listening to music and many agree that in the correct context, music can change the way in which we think and respond to a certain circumstance. This becomes evident in television or movies and can serve as a perfect example as to how amusia impacts the lives of those with the disorder. Consider the movie Jaws (1975) and the simplicity of those two, famous notes that were able to capture the attention of the audience to create a villain of the shark. Music is used in movies, like this and others, to create atmosphere and impact on the emotion or feeling of a scene. Music often has the capacity to build tension, lighten the mood or bring people to tears within both television and movies. Those who suffer from amusia (or another disorder similar) cannot correctly hear or identify with this music. A haunting scene therefore does not have the same impact without the eerie and chilling music attached.

Amusia affects ones sense of self on a deeper emotional level also. These individuals may find it hard to connect to others or feel excluded in many social situations. One amusic woman explained that as a child all she ever wished for was to hear music the way all the other children at school did (Sacks, 2007). Her amusia was causing distress in other psychological aspects of her life and therefore impacting her emotionally due to the high importance that society places on music. Many others describe their experiences with music as akin to throwing all the pots and pans on the floor of a kitchen and being “very sensitive to high notes” (Sacks, 2007). This clearly would create an uncomfortable, uneasy and disturbing environment and therefore form a sheer distaste to music. It reinforces the idea that amusia would distance one from others in many social situations.

It must also be noted that many people who experience amusia have acquired it in their lifetime, which is often due to injury. The story of a composer, who was involved in a car accident leaving her amusic, demonstrated the hardships and life altering effect that this disorder had (Sacks, 2007). She was then unable to compose music the way she used to, as she had no ability to differentiate between various pitches. She explained it as “I absorb everything equally, to a degree that becomes at times a real torture” (Sacks, 2007). She could no longer use music as a comfort, rather now as a nuisance and painful encounter. This reinforces the idea that amusia can impact on one’s identity and in this case destroy a sense of belonging.

Amusia is a neurological disorder of the brain that impacts a sufferer in many different ways. It has an influence on their social life and behaviours as it can often lead to feelings of seclusion or loneliness due to the inability to perceive, interpret or appreciate musical sounds. The relationship between the brain and musical cognition is intrinsically linked and if damaged or ill-formed, this can distort ones ability to experience or understand music, resulting in disorders such as amusia. Overall, amusia (cultural, congenital or acquired) affects the lives of those who live with the musical disability and impacts the way in which they connect with particular experiences.

Mus 211
Essay – week 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ayotte, J., Peretz, I. and Hyde, K. 2002. Congenital amusia A group study of adults afflicted with a music-specific disorder. Brain, 125 (2), pp. 238--251.

Burt, G. 1994. The art of film music. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Foxton, J. M., Dean, J. L., Gee, R., Peretz, I. and Griffiths, T. D. 2004. Characterization of deficits in pitch perception underlying ‘tone deafness’. Brain, 127 (4), pp. 801--810.

Hannon, E. E., Trehub, S. and E, R. 2005. Tuning in to musical rhythms: Infants learn more readily than adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102 (35), pp. 12639--12643.

Jaws. 1975. [DVD] Stephen Spielberg.

Peretz, I. 2006. The nature of music from a biological perspective. Cognition, 100 (1), pp. 1--32.

Sacks, O. W. 2007. Musicophilia. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.