How Music Affects Your Brain: when you're listening to music, your brain tries to match your breathing and heartbeat to the music. Pleasant music increases serotonin. Engages hippocampus: helps with long-term memory storage; that's why people with dementia can still recall memories from hearing songs. Listening to songs loud can reduce your reaction times by 20%. 

This Is Your Brain On Music: neurons in your brain fire at the same rate as the music you hear. That's while athletes jog to music. Constant pulse gives momentum. Music reduces cortisol levels (stress hormone). Music is mood regulation. Listening to music uses both hemispheres of the brain.

How Playing An Instrument Benefits Your Brain: neuroscientists have tested that all areas of their brain process music, especially when learning to play the music. Playing music is the brains equivalent of a fully body workout. Different areas of the brain light up at fast paces because every area of the brain is being engaged (visual, auditory and motor cortex). You're strengthening fine motor skills which can be applied to every day life. Making music helps with creativity. Musicians exhibit enhanced memory functions over non-musicians. 

The Music Instinct––Science and Song: research has shown that even from the beginning of time, music has had a significant impact on human evolution. Music triggers memories; when we hear a certain song we might think of a specific memory or person that we once associated with that song. Deaf artist,Evelyn Glennie, hears music through vibrations in the floor and in her body. Different frequencies resonate in different places. Music therapy can help with mental and physical disabilities. 

The Brain Plays Music (16:14-21:24) : There's no activity other than music that allows the brain to use so many functions other than music. Brain scans show that although there is a lot of brain activity while you're making music alone, when you're interacting with other people the activity is so much greater. When you're socially engaged the brain has to use more functions of the brain. 

Music Changes The Brain (104:54-114:00) : The corpus callosum is larger in the brain of musicians than of non-musicians. The c.c. is the part of the brain that ties together the right and left hemisphere and it is larger because music uses both sides of the brain. Musicians have increased auditory functions. A blind musician is so musically talented because he was able to call upon other pats of the brain that would be working toward vision to help him with his music abilities. Blind people also have increased auditory functions, so a blind musician can hear music very well. 

Brief Overview of Practice This Week:

This past week I have been practicing the Star Spangled Banner 4 part harmony, and I have finished and finalized Flamenco. 

How Can I Apply This To My Practice And Playing?

I have learned a lot from this new research. For starts, I have learned that engaging with others sparks even more activity in your brain. Lessons and collaborations with my peers will help me to stay engaged while playing my instrument. I also learned the importance of listening to and playing pleasant music. Learning about how musicians use all different parts of the brain was very fascinating to me because it made me realize how many pieces there are that go into playing an instrument. On that note (no pun intended) realizing all the complicated layers of music and parts of the brain that need to be engaged, made me realize how important it is to chunk and practice over and over.