Latest / Incredible Mind / Your Brain on Music: Anna Palumbo
Transcript
- speaker-0: Yeah. You were made for creativity, learning, problem solving, and of course, action. On the Incredible Mind podcast, you'll hear from neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, artists, and others whose work expands our understanding of how the brain works, where things can go wrong, and what simple, everyday steps you can take to make the most of the unique intelligence you were born with. The Incredible Mind I'm Talking About. is yours. We're kicking things off with a series of conversations about creativity and the mind. In this episode, my guest Anna Palumbo speaks about music, how it interacts with the brain, how music therapy can be used to treat everything from autism to strokes, and why everyone, and I mean everyone, should improvise. Let's get started. Welcome everyone to Incredible Mind Podcast with me, your host, Michelle Cross Smith. And today we are speaking with Anna Palumbo. Anna is the research manager at the Nordoff Robbins Center for Music Therapy at NYU, New York University. So our conversation today is about music and what it does to your brain, whether you are listening or playing, how music can be used in therapy, and then also how to apply this information in your daily life. So, Anna, welcome. Thank you so much for coming today. To kick things off, can you tell us about your center and your work? speaker-1: Sure. I'm seated here right now at the Nordoff Robbins Center for Music Therapy. We are part of New York University, but run as a clinic separately. So we see around 80 clients per year. Predominantly, the clients who come here are autistic children and we work on development and just self-expression and social engagement, musical engagement, but we're also a training center so we train graduate students in music therapy as they become credentialed as music therapists. We also have a post-master's training. In music therapy. So this is an advanced certification in the Nordorf Robbins method for music therapy. Back to that in a second because it's a certain kind of music therapy that links very closely with my research. And the other thing that we do here is research. From the very beginning, when Nordorf Robbins music therapy began in the late 60s, early 70s, the originators of this method, Paul Nordoff, And Clive Robbins recorded everything they did because they felt that they were observing this true nature of why it's so important to engage with music. And they wanted to be able to share it and also understand these transformations that they were witnessing. So we continue that to this day and try to continue to unpack why does music help? What does music do for each individual and how can we use it most effectively? Finally, I'll just say at the Nordorf Robbins Center, our specific Methods had to do with the use of clinical improvisation. So we're not here to give you music lessons and to teach you how to play an instrument, though you may certainly gain confidence in playing an instrument while you're here. It's more about establishing a musical connection with another person, that being your music therapist and playing expressively, learning what kind of music connects with each individual, what kind of music. animates a person's innate innate strengths to allow them to develop in the direction that's most important or meaningful for them. speaker-0: ⁓ So you said that you're not there to teach them how to play music, but considering your client base, are people coming in with any musical training or are they sort of learning how to play at the same time as as having therapy? speaker-1: Right. So you don't need any musical training to come to music therapy. Certainly some of the clients might be in music lessons, but that's not a requirement. Some of the first goals we might work with with a client are just being in the music together. So a lot of times for clients that we see coming to the center, one of the challenges is just being in this joint attention on the same thing, right? Being able to connect. To experience that connection. And so it could be that they're playing a drum and they're just maintaining the same beat, and we are in the same place. And from that place, there can be a crescendo or an acceleration or a louder, softer, and this movement together in the music. And what the music therapist is doing is continually trying different styles, modes, different types of musical dynamics to see what kind of music gets each participant. engaged, what kind of music tur turns on that aha and makes them want to orient to the music rather than saying, hey, do this and then I'll give you that. speaker-0: ⁓ that's so interesting. And do your clients come in having any sense of what they like in terms of music? Or do they discover it during the course of therapy? speaker-1: Some clients come in nonverbal or non-speaking. For these clients, their parents might tell us that they listen to a certain kind of music at home. Yeah, and then we will build from that. In my research in stroke rehabilitation, most of the time I was able to talk with these individuals and say, well, what do you like? And then we start from there. Some people say, ⁓ I used to play flute or piano in high school. So they have a little musical literacy. And others are just exploring, you know, for the first time, other than whatever they did recreationally in their life. speaker-0: I really like that because in our culture we really come to think of music as you only do it if you're really good at it, that it's some sort of performance always and that you have to meet a certain criteria to play, but that's a more recent development, really, right? Music is part of being human. speaker-1: Totally. I mean, one of my, I'd say, greatest motivations for my work is to encourage everybody to feel confident and engaged with their musical self. We are all musical, all of us. And so to be able to harness that really connects you to a strength that your own personal strengths, a new way of engaging. speaker-0: Absolutely. That actually leads me to one of my questions. How did you get into this field? What brought you here? speaker-1: ⁓ man, that's a long story. speaker-0: Oops. Okay, well let's give it a try. speaker-1: Give you the clip notes. I mean, I'd say every time you meet a music therapist because it is a growing field, one of the first questions people ask is, How did you become a music therapist? Because it's not something many people these days grow up and say, ⁓ I want to be a music therapist, right? It's not as known yet, though it's a growing field. I would say that I always had these dual passions in my life. Music. I'm a primarily a singer, but I also grew up playing piano and now I play guitar. And music just stirs something in me where I it's it brings me so much joy and it makes me want to share it and connect with people. It's it has this power that draws me to it and to sharing it. And so I've always loved music and then I've always loved science. It just activates another part of my brain, you know, that's it's overlapping but also distinct this other way of thinking and solving problems and trying to understand why and how. I'd say throughout my education and Career, I was always kind of bouncing back and forth, toyed with being pre-med, and tried to figure out what would I do. And music therapy seemed to really combine these two sides of me into something where I felt I could really help people and also. learned something. So I became a music therapist and practiced for five years working in acute inpatient psychiatry, also in neurorehabilitation and with children and their development. And as I was practicing clinically, I had so many questions that I wanted to answer. So when the chance came up to do a PhD and to ask those questions, I jumped on it. That's how I ended up here today. speaker-0: That's so cool. It's not the first time I've heard talking to people who are exploring some form of creativity in science. It tends to be this dual passion of the subject they're studying plus the science of it. So I really like that. speaker-1: Yes, I think Daisy Fancourt has that new book, The Art Cure. And it ⁓ the first chapter she tells the story and I was like, ⁓ we need to have coffee. Daisy, if you're listening, let's have coffee. speaker-0: I don't know that book, but I'm gonna check it out. So The Art Cure. Yes. Okay. Wonderful. And my sister is a visual arts therapist. This this makes sense to me. It's really cool. speaker-1: Right. I mean, music has this capacity to bypass our defenses. So we can talk ourselves in loops around something that we're trying to understand. But the minute you get into a creative medium, be it art or music, there is this other way of expressing and feeling that brings out new ideas that maybe were hidden beneath our normal thought pattern loops, whether they be defenses or just patterns. So we know that. Creative individuals have more functional connectivity between executive and default mode brain networks. And ⁓ I'd say we don't know the science behind why do we have these aha moments when we're being creative, but I think something about this functional connectivity between networks that are expected to be distinct, the thinking-planning network and the self-referential default mode mind-wandering network should be distinct, but yet in creativity. They're engaging or switching. And that's I think part of what makes creativity so powerful. speaker-0: You're getting into the science of this and I think that's the perfect opportunity to get started with that. So I have two questions for you. One is what happens in our brains when we listen to music? And then what happens in our brains when we we play music, whether it's singing or playing a guitar or whatever? speaker-1: Yeah. Well, music is one of those things that activates so many parts of your brain. For example, when we were doing our fMRI study on music improvisation, we wanted to choose a part of the brain that we expected to not be active. So we thought, ⁓ how about the visual cortex? This is an audio task. So the vision parts of the brain should not be active. Wrong. And that's not a unique finding, right? So The just listening to music activates the motor areas of your brain. speaker-0: Just listening motor areas meaning the physical movement part of your brain. speaker-1: Right. So the primary motor cortex, the areas of your brain that would cause you to move. This is especially true if it's a piece that you've played before, right? And so maybe you have this habit in your brain where you're thinking about playing it, but it is not a requirement. Just Listening to music engages your motor cortex. This could relate to dancing. I don't think we know the science of exactly why, but we know that music is not just something that goes and activates your auditory cortex and is something your brain processes as just sound. Okay. Music is social. Music engages movement. Music is something that, although we hear it, we also are accustomed to seeing people interact. With it and seeing people play. All of these parts of the brain, when we are listening, are getting ready, are starting to respond. When we now play the instrument, we are seeing activity in the primary motor cortex, of course, which has to do with doing the movement. We also see activation in the supplementary motor area. Which is a timing and sequencing part of the brain that has to do with planning your movement. We know through studies of individuals who have had a stroke and through individuals who have not, that there is functional connectivity between our auditory and motor areas of the brain. So in a task, ⁓ this is a study by Pablo Rey Polles, who was my PhD mentor. And in this ⁓ study, participants were asked to listen to a piece of music and just tap along. And there was functional connectivity, that means that the brain areas were active at the same time. Got it. So there's joint activation in the auditory and motor areas among healthy individuals, and this was reduced in individuals after having a stroke, even with mild stroke. However, an intervention involving playing music restored the functional connectivity between these auditory and motor areas. To the same levels as the healthy individuals. Wow. And this was not a complex task. This was just learning to play a melody on a keyboard or learning to play that same melody on tone pads that were put to the same scale as the keyboard, right? So very simple just moving to music restored this functional connectivity, which is exciting because even in individuals who are adults who have a lesion from a stroke, their brains are responding. Responding and changing to the music with just very basic tasks of playing a melody. speaker-0: Now, when you talk about a stroke, what really is a stroke? My husband had a stroke that in fact impacted his vision. Yeah. So would you not expect any interference with music if his if his stroke was in the visual part of his brain? speaker-1: It really depends on where the stroke is and where each artery connects, right? ⁓ I'm not a neurologist, so I'm not an expert on which arteries go exactly. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I believe a lot of strokes are in the middle cerebral artery and these connect with many parts of the brain. Okay. And so it depends strokes can happen in two ways. We have an ischemic stroke where there's usually an occlusion in one of the blood vessels, and this stops the blood from traveling to that to parts of the brain. Which means there's not oxygen going to the parts of the brain and those parts of the brain, if that goes on long enough and atrophying, right? It becomes no longer active brain tissue. And that's what we call a brain lesion. Got it. Another way this can happen is there's some sort of hemorrhage in the brain, which can happen for different reasons. And if this hemorrhage happens, it applies pressure. to the brain. That the hemorrhage means that there is blood coming out of the blood vessels in a way that it shouldn't be, right? It should be contained within the blood vessels. Right. And so if that happens, it applies pressure to different parts of the brain. This can also restrict the oxygen and result in damaged brain tissue. speaker-0: Got it. Well thank you for that. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. You know, depending on where your stroke is and what kind of stroke it is, you could have a very localized injury or a very diffuse injury over many different regions. speaker-0: Yes, and my husband's was just visual and it ended up receding to just the lower ten percent left field of his vision. So we were really lucky. speaker-1: Yes. Well I'm glad he recovered well. speaker-0: Yes, yes he did, but it's always made me interested in strokes and how to recover from them and music therapy sounds like a great way to start rebuilding that that connectivity. So is it creating new pathways or new new connections? speaker-1: This is a great question. So I think this question has been explored perhaps most with post-stroke aphasia. So when people, instead of losing vision, as your husband did, experienced loss of speech. Loss of speech is called Broca's aphasia. That's where expressive language, being able to speak, is impacted. Other people have Wernicke's aphasia, where they are able to speak, but what they say sounds like gibberish. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: Right. It doesn't it's called word salad. It's not making sense. And it's hard to know if in their minds their sentences are coherent because they can't speak to us in the way that they used to, right? Definitely. So in these individuals, specifically for brochosophasia, those who we know are having ideas they want to express but are having difficulty saying them. ⁓ speaker-0: That'd be so frustrating. speaker-1: For these individuals, sometimes people cannot speak, but they can still sing. Huh. So as a clinician, I have been at the bedside of a patient who had had a stroke and hadn't spoken in two weeks. And I said, I know you think I'm crazy, but I want you to sing happy birthday. Always better to use a song that you've known it's most ingrained, right? So happy birthday. We've been singing our whole lives almost as soon as we could from our first birthday, right? That's so he sang the whole song. Start to finish. Get out. It still gives me chills. Yep. Right. I'd say there are different theories about how that happens. We know that language is left lateralized in our brain. So our language centers in our brain are on the in the left hemisphere. So it could be that if you have a more mild stroke that speaker-0: ⁓ my god. speaker-1: The ⁓ music is helping the brain to go around that lesioned area to keep the connection going even though there's a lesion. There's also possibility that for a larger stroke, the music is helping to engage the right hemisphere in parallel pathways. And that question I don't think is answered yet about exactly which way is this working. speaker-0: So I guess that means there's a different part of the brain that we use when we're singing to get in different notes, maybe? speaker-1: I would say because music engages and connects so many parts of the brain, when there is a lesion and that connection is hard to make, the music can help to facilitate that connection. It can help to work around where that damage is. Establishing new neural pathways is not impossible, but it's more difficult. And we know that after a stroke, there's an increase in brain-derived neurotropic factor. This is what can help with neurogenesis and making new. connections. So we also know from a study that I was able to do with the Nordaf Robin Center that playing music also helps to increase brain derived neurotropic factor, as does exercise, right? So another way to just get your brain working and ready to connect is playing music. speaker-0: So it's it's the doing, not just the receiving of the music, but the actual ⁓ okay, sorry. speaker-1: Would have to do that study. Doing is important. I think the doing help clinically, observationally, I would say I've observed in the doing is where people are able to express and become more engaged in what it is that they are receiving in the music, right? It's not just listening to the music, it's singing along with it. speaker-0: Right. This is so interesting. So we may have people listening who are musicians or who are non-musicians, but I heard you mention that one of your areas of focus is improvisation. So can you share with us some information on what makes improv special? speaker-1: Yes. Definitely. I think we're all improvising all the time in some ways. I'm improvising right now and talking to you, right? I didn't plan anything that I was gonna say. Maybe I should have. ⁓ speaker-0: No, no. Improv's best. Improv's best. speaker-1: So when we get to improvise, we get to be expressive. We get to be creative. When we improvise, we get feedback from people on an idea or an expression that we created. It helps us to create our identities when we try out ways of talking or acting or playing music and we receive feedback in terms of how that created a connection or not. In music therapy, improvisation serves many roles, but this can be applied to the general population, right? So in music therapy, we improvise as clinicians because we want our clients to know that we are listening. I compare it to talk therapy. If I went to a therapist and they were just going through a survey of questions, I would be like, knock knock, are you there? You know? But the therapist is constantly talking to you and you say something and they respond in a certain way. We do the same thing in a musical conversation that someone plays one thing and then we respond with another idea and there's this back and forth. But with music, what's so cool is that when you're improvising, you can both be playing at the same time. You can be going somewhere together and experiencing this intersubjectivity or knowing each other and traveling there together. Music is this creative space where we can try different things on. Music is a creative space where you can take risks, and that can be an important part of ⁓ development and change, especially after something like a stroke, this ability to take a risk and try something and maybe succeed, maybe fail and try again. These are things that have come up in recent scales, one by Daisy Fancourt on this idea of emotional regulation and creativity, how being creative also requires this stance of emotional regulation because we have to be willing to fail, we have to be willing to try things. But also, what I think as clinicians, we've always observed is that when we allow people to be expressive when they're playing, they're more engaged. And as clinicians, especially in the Nordolph Robbins approach, we're always interested in harnessing intrinsic motivation. No matter who your client is, but you know, especially let's say in stroke rehabilitation where someone might be doing many repetitions of a movement that they used to be able to do all the time, and they're experiencing a lot of frustration and sadness and anxiety about their body. If we can make that movement motivating and interesting, that's helpful. And when people improvise, there's this element of creativity and expression that we have observed clinically make it more interesting, more motivating. And so what my research has done has shown that actually, yes, we can show that improvisation makes playing music more rewarding. People say it's more rewarding. Their physiological responses, like their ⁓ skin conductance, shows us that it's more rewarding, and their heart rate shows us that it's more rewarding. And their brain activation and the ventral striatum, which is a reward area of the brain that is activated for rewarding tasks like financial gains, but also music, is enhanced when people are improvising compared to conditions where we just ask them to. Do something like maintain the beat or play in a very constrained way. So something about getting to be expressive in music animates us. And so for the general population, what I always like to say is whether you're playing music or you're listening to it, express yourself. And you'll get more out of it. speaker-0: You mentioned something about intrinsic motivation. That is a term that maybe not everyone's familiar with. So can you explain it a little bit to us? speaker-1: Definitely. So there's two kinds of motivation, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation, let's say you're a student and you want to get an A. Maybe you're a kid and your parents say, if you do the dishes, I'll give you an allowance. Right? So you do something and you get an external reward and that makes you want to do it more. Got it. Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you take pleasure in it. Cause you find it appealing. speaker-0: Just the doing of it is what motivates you that you like to do it. speaker-1: Right, you want to do it. It's your choice. You're doing it because you're drawn to it. That's super powerful. And so with music, we can get people engaged in something that's meaningful to them. And when we get there from that point, that's where I think the most growth is possible. speaker-0: When you talked about improv and and how great it is, it also and it can be intrinsically motivated or motivating. I think one hurdle that many, many of us might have is that feeling of, well, what if it sounds terrible? What if my improv just sucks? And then you're applying this sort of internal yet almost external judgment on your own playing. So how do you get past that? speaker-1: Totally. Well, okay, so there's some really interesting, I'd say, dialogue happening in the neuroscience community on what's happening in your brain when you improvise music, and it connects so well with some of what you're saying here. So I mentioned before there's this executive ⁓ net brain network and the default mode network when jazz improvisers improvise. It seems to be that their executive network, which is the planning for the future, and also self-monitoring, like am I making a mistake? That part where you're saying, is this right? That part seems to go down. And the default mode network, which is thinking about the self and connecting to others and and mind wandering, that seems to go up. This is started with a study that was done by Charles Lim on improvisation and jazz improvisers. But when similar studies were done with classically trained musicians who were not trained in improvisation, there was an increase in the executive network, not the default mode network. Now, since then there've been back and forth studies and seems to be that there's some like con some like consensus around, well, both networks are are becoming active, right? And they're maybe even becoming co-active, which is interesting, or at least actively quickly switching back and forth. But to answer your question practically for a person, how do you get over that that hump, even if you're you've never played an instrument before and you want to do something and express. speaker-0: really back and forth. speaker-1: In a therapeutic space, we say, well, we want to make the environment safe and affirming and accessible. So we introduced instruments that are accessible. We have a metallophone which has little bars on it for each note of the scale. And we take out the half steps so there's no dissonance. And there's no notes that you can strike that are gonna sound like, ⁓ you know, that was bad. So there's little tricks you can do, but I think the most important thing is to find a space where you're around people or maybe you're just listening to yourself and you create a space where it's okay to make a mistake. It's okay to explore and try things. Just let it be fun. It's music. It's not like a final on an exam. You're just music. It's something that you get to try out and it's fun. speaker-0: And it it doesn't have to be you on a stage with an audience. It's not American Idol or something with judges, right? It's just play. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And and start where you feel capable. Like if you're someone who likes to tap on the steering wheel when you're listening to a song on the radio, then maybe get yourself a little drum and tap along a little more. Cause that's something you do. If you like to sing in the shower, maybe look for chances to sing more. Like start where you already feel connected. speaker-0: That's really good advice. I'm still blown away by the connection of music with the auditory and motor parts of our brain because I am one of those people that if music comes on, I start dancing. I can't not move. Yep. And I didn't think about the what was going on cognitively with that. I just thought, ⁓ that's just the kind of person that I am. speaker-1: Right. So there's something that your brain finds very rewarding about being synchronized with the beat. But there's also this other thing that happens in music has to do with what makes us want to move to it. And that has to do a lot, we think, with rhythmic complexity and maybe especially with syncopation. So syncopation is when the beats are placed in an area where you don't expect them to be. You might have a four-four meter. But then maybe you have Right? Yeah. And there's a few beats happening where you don't expect them. What your body actually does is moves in the spot where you expect the beat to have been. It's as if your body is keeping time. And so you can kind of watch for yourself now. When you hear a very syncopated song, notice how you really put your body into those downbeats when there's a missing beat. Yeah, there's something about it. speaker-0: That is so so cool. speaker-1: So this idea of groove has been defined as this pleasurable desire to move to music. And it just happens to be that with moderate levels of rhythmic complexity, we get the highest amounts of desire to move. So if it's not very rhythmically complex, people say, not moved to move. If it's super rhythmic rhythmically complex, people can't really grasp it. But right there in the middle, there's this what's called the sweet spot. And That's what gets people moving. That's the speaker-0: It makes us groove. I love that. This has been really interesting. Is there anything else, Anna, that you would want to tell people? Recommendations based on everything you've learned, maybe for someone who is a musician, and then even someone who's a non-musician but likes music. speaker-1: The thing that I want everybody to know is that music is for everyone. As you mentioned in the beginning of our conversation, some people are told when they're young, ⁓ you're just not a musician, or they don't get the training. They don't become a specialist. Some people are even told you can't sing. The thing is, even if you're not singing on pitch, or you know, with the song, being engaged in the music and being a part of it is just Fundamental to how we can share a connection with others and share part of a of a musical experience. So I like to tell people, just don't hold back. Be in the music. Don't be afraid to dance in an awkward way or sing on the wrong note. Be in that Joni Mitchell concert where she says, the more voices, the better, and the more out of tune voices, the better. speaker-0: There is that. speaker-1: them let everybody be heard. That's the most important thing. And I think when we allow ourselves to express in music, yeah, we can just really harness a lot of potential. speaker-0: Absolutely. Now, for those who are musicians, they're probably getting a lot of insight o over everything that you're saying. But let's say I'm a professional musician and I'm feeling I don't know, depressed because I'm not getting enough gigs or or whatever it is. This may be something that musicians already know intuitively, but what are ways that they can use music to s sort of break out of a funk? Well speaker-1: When you play music professionally, you're not necessarily playing music for yourself. And when you play music professionally, there can be more engagement with this critical voice. Am I playing it in the right way? Am I hitting that note just so so that it will ring out in the right way? Am I do I have as a singer the right posture? All these things. I think the most important thing is, even if you're a professional musician, to have space. Where you play music just for yourself, just to experience the music, and to remember that primarily music is a way to connect. So that cracked note when you're singing is actually beautiful just as that purely resonant one is, right? It's that being in it and being present that is most profound. speaker-0: So not just practice, practice, practice necessarily, but just just play for the love of playing. ⁓ that's wonderful. Well, Anna, thank you so much. This has been a really great conversation. And I hope it inspires everyone who's listening or watching to get out there and interact with music. Every day. Did you hear that? Thanks, Anna. speaker-1: I think so. Every day. speaker-0: This episode is dedicated to Linda Valencourt, a friend of mine who has devoted her entire career to the teaching and playing of music. Incredible Mind Podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Michelle Cross Smith. Angela Ferrero designed the cover art, and the music was created by Alex Grohl. Anna's reading recommendation is The Art Cure by Daisy Fancourt. For more information about Incredible Mind, check out our website at incredible-mind.org. Thanks for listening.