"Music's Nuerological effects"

“Music’s Neurological Effects”

Clive Thompson argues that music isn’t just a bunch of sound and noises but, an art that we humans interact with. He also stated that music unlocks mysteries of the brain. He claims that by the age of five the average person is a music expert. For example, many people can give you the name of a song just by simply hearing a few seconds of the song. This is because of music’s ability to trigger reward centers in the brain (ventral tegmental area). Thompson develops this claim by first analyzing and evaluating Dr. Levitin’s, experiment on people and their astonishingly accurate ability to sing a song entirely from memory within a semitone of a song’s original pitch. Thompson refers to an area of the brain called the Cerebellum. The cerebellum is an area normally associated with physical movement.  However, the cerebellum is also wired to the ear and reacts every time a song changes tempo. Therefore, it is evident we humans directly interact with music. Lastly, the author concludes on how the brain experiences a different type of feeling during a live performance and a recorded one. The purpose of this is to persuade the reader that music is an art we interact with that stimulates the brain in various ways.