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Music of The Hemispheres

This nOde last updated August 20th, 2002 and is permanently morphing...
(11 K'an (Corn) / 17 Yaxk'in (New Sun) - 24/260 - 12.19.9.9.4)

The playing and composition of music has always been considered the near-exclusive province of the brain's right hemisphere. This turns out to be far from the truth. For example, non-musicians use both hemispheres in musical matters; the right side for recognizing melody and intonation, the left for such analytical matters as rhythm and notation. However, professional musicians, as their brain waves demonstrate, use their left hemispheres for just
about everything of a musical nature. So much for the right-hemisphere theory.

The comparison of magnetic resonance images of 27 right-handed musicians and 27 right-handed nonmusicians have shown that even their brain structures differ. The corpus callosum---that inter-hemisphere information highway--- is 10-15% thicker in musicians who began their training while young than it is in nonmusicians. Our brain structure is apparently strongly molded by early training. The corpus callosum in musicians is essential in such things as finger coordination. Like a weight-lifter's biceps, it enlarges to accommodate the increased tasks assigned to it.

(Anonymous; "Music of the Hemispheres," Discover, 15:15, March 1994.)

• book _Music Of The Spheres - The Material Universe from Atom To Quasar_ by Guy Murchie
• ambient IDM track _Music Of The Spheres_ MP3 (160k) by Human Mesh Dance off of _Mindflower_ on Instinct (1994)
• track _The New Freemdoom_ MP3 by Masters Of The Hemisphere off of _I Am Not A Freemdoom_ on Kindercore (2000)

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