Applied Neuroscience, the Six-String Method [View all]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/books/gary-marcus-professor-at-nyu-picks-up-a-guitar.html?_r=1&emc=eta1



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For any adult learning an instrument or a new language is terrifying. For a cognitive scientist, it can also be downright depressing. Humans have an early childhood window to acquire such skills easily, according to a long-held tenet in his profession, and it’s a window that closes quickly. Then there is the issue of innate ability. While no single gene can explain Beethoven, Yo-Yo Ma or “Waterloo Sunset,” Dr. Marcus does believe in natural talent, he said, or at least in the certainty he doesn’t have any.

His brain didn’t seem wired for it. Growing up in Baltimore, he loved listening to his parents’ Beatles and Peter, Paul and Mary records, but he was uncoordinated, given to bouts of motion sickness and unable even to use a playground swing. “I think it’s something to do with my cerebellum,” he said. He flunked an aptitude test for band and was discouraged from playing the recorder which, in public school, pretty much leaves the tambourine.

Five years ago he asked a fellow scientist, Dr. Levitin, to show him a few chords. “His timing was off,” Dr. Levitin said. “I told him to practice with a metronome.” But Dr. Marcus couldn’t keep the beat and feared there might be a neurological explanation: a form of musical arrhythmia. Now even the tambourine seemed out of the question.

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But as a scientist he was keenly interested in the compensatory mechanisms: how the brain can essentially rewire itself to make up for deficits caused by a stroke, trauma or even a nonexistent sense of rhythm. Maybe with training his prefrontal cortex could accomplish what his cerebellum couldn’t.


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As one who started guitar at age 61, and has no innate talent, I could relate to much of the article. Good read for adults aspiring to be musicians.