Something Interesting - Brain.mic

My music therapy friend, Beth Schwartz, from Raising Harmony, posted an interesting link today. The link takes you to Brain.mic which is a collaborative link between GE and Mic. One of the elements of the page states that this is a one-month Spotlight Series that "explores the universe in our heads." The thing that drew me into the site was the "Map Your Mind Quiz." I found it absolutely fascinating - I even posted the results on Facebook (which I RARELY do with the quizzes that I take). The best part of the quiz, in my opinion, was that it displayed areas of the brain that were probably activated during the decision process. I thought that was particularly interesting.

My result was "You are the child of Abraham da Vinci" implying that I have characteristics of both Abraham Lincoln and Leonardo da Vinci. How can I argue?

I am looking forward to delving into the rest of the Brain.mic site. I've already found an article about the difference between the brains of Conservatives and Liberals and one on how we have been brainwashed to like pop music. I think this is just my kind of site!

Back to the brain...

One of my music therapy obsessions continues to be how music is processed in the brain. I am interested in how we humans experience, process, manipulate, and use sound stimuli to complete many different things. One of my favorite books for the technical parts of this interest is The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, edited by Isabelle Peretz and Robert Zatorre. Published by our friends at Oxford University Press in 2004, this book addresses all types of music cognition and neuroscience! Are you thinking that I'm an uber-geek yet? When it comes to music and neuroscience, I am!

I want to know how we process music. I want to know if there are any similarities, differences, or patterns that occur. I want to know if my students with specific diagnoses process these sounds differently from those with other diagnoses. There is so much that we know, and infinitely more that we don't know!

Now, I am not the type of music therapist who believes that I have to know exactly what is going on in the brain before I can do music therapy. I can see the benefits of music applied in a therapeutic manner every day, but I still want to know what's going on in my students' minds. I believe that the things we are learning about the brain and about music are enriching what we do as music therapists.

Train of thought derailment here - I don't think this is a philosophy of music therapy, but a framework for music therapy. I think that is a significant distinction to make here. I need to develop these thoughts a bit more before I can state them somewhat more clearly (obviously), but I think I'm onto something here...

Whew - that really shifted my thinking pattern. I think I'll take my Peretz & Zatorre to work today so I can read a bit during my intern's music therapy sessions. Off I go.