A piano tuner at work (from seljes on Flickr)
Wellcome Trust-funded scientists at UCL have shown that working as a piano tuner may lead to changes in the structure of the memory and navigation areas of the brain. The study, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience , shows that these structural differences correlate with the number of years of experience a piano tuner has accumulated. Piano tuning involves listening to the sound of two notes played simultaneously (a two-note chord) and 'navigating' between sequences of chords in which one note is already tuned and the other has to be adjusted. Interaction between the sounds produced by the two notes produces a wobbling sound (known as a 'beat'). Tuners detect the frequency of this fluctuation (the 'beat rate') and adjust it so that the two notes are in tune. Since different combinations of notes in a chord produce different frequencies, tuners use these beat rates as a form of acoustic 'signpost' in the virtual 'pitch space' of a piano to help them tune subsequent notes in a systematic manner. Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL and Newcastle University used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine how the brain structures of 19 professional piano tuners differed from those of 19 controls.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT
And extend your reading, free of charge and with no commitment.
