- Reprinted with permission from "The Parent's Guide: Getting
the Most
- Out Of Your Child's Band or Orchestral Experience"
published by The
- Selmer Company.
-
- Singing Familiar Songs is Found to
Use Spatial Abilities
-
- Singing appears to be much more than just a fun thing to do;
it
- seemingly uses a person's spatial intelligence. Researchers in
the United
- States and New Zealand report in [a 1997] issue
[vol. 24, No. 2] of the
- English scientific journal "The Psychology of Music" that the
simple act
- of singing changes the way the brain "thinks" about music.
These
- findings come on the heels of recent reports showing that
piano playing
- increases the spatial ability of children. Now it seems that
singing uses
- the same mental skills.
-
- Spatial intelligence is that aspect of our intelligence that
allows
- us to make judgments about the three-dimensional world in
which we
- live. A football player catching a pass relies on spatial
intelligence to
- judge the trajectory of the ball. An architect uses it to
visualize what a
- building will look like when it is completed. We all use it
every time we
- drive a car and have to judge the distance to the car in front
of us.
- Advanced math courses require good spatial intelligence.
-
- The report tells of a fairly complex experiment that was
conducted
- to determine how the human brain thinks about music while
singing.
- The experiment counted on the brain's natural desire to group
things
- together. For example, if a person goes to the grocery store
but forgets
- his or her list, he or she will to try to remember what was on
the list. The
- most common way would be to remember the items according to
some
- logical groups; say dairy products, meat products, and
cleaning products.
- Another way would be to remember by menu; if they were having
hot
- dogs for lunch they would remember hot dogs, buns, baked
beans,
- mustard and ketchup and then go on to the next meal that is
planned.
- If you watched this person in the grocery store you could tell
how
- they had things grouped in their head by the paths they took
around the
- store. This same logic was used with the singing
experiment.
-
- Drs. Robert Cutietta from the University of Arizona and
Gregory
- Booth from the University of Auckland taught college students
to sing
- many melodies by hearing and singing them over and over for
five
- weeks. The melodies were deliberately written to be very
similar to each
- another. It soon became obvious that the students were
grouping the
- songs in order to remember them. [However, the
students] grouped them
- according to a very abstract aspect of music - the shape of
the melody -
- even though there were many other more obvious ways they could
have
- been grouped. Melodies with similar patterns of notes going up
and
- down were grouped together by the students. This happened even
though
- they had never seen the music for the songs and did not know
they were
- supposed to group them.
-
- Thus, the students were converting the sounds into an image in
their
- heads. This image was actually a picture of what the melody
would look
- like if it were somehow projected on a piece of paper.
Interestingly,
- trained musicians and non-musicians did it exactly the same
way
- showing that it is probably a basic way the brain works, not
something
- that is learned.
-
- These findings help answer a fundamental question about
music.
- Researchers have long wondered why a person can recognize a
song
- when it is played in different keys. For example, if "Happy
Birthday" is
- played in two different keys, the two versions could have no
actual notes
- in common. Yet almost everyone, regardless of musical
training, will
- recognize it as the same song. It has long been suspected that
the brain
- remembers music by the "shape". This research supports that
idea.
-
- These findings also add support to music programs for children
in
- elementary school. Music classes, filled with singing, are
often
- considered fluff by many school administrators. Now it seems
this fun
- activity is actually developing a child's spatial ability: an
ability
- important in everything from driving a car to advanced
math.
-
- Reference: Robert Cutietta & Gregory Booth. The Influence
of
- Metre, Mode, Interval Type, and Contour in Repeated Melodic
Free-Recall. The
- Psychology of Music, vol. 24, No 2. Pages: 222-236.
-
- Source: http://faculty.washington.edu/demorest/News13-1.html
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